Interlude
by Adia7
Summary: After her confrontation with Umbridge, Professor Snape offers Professor McGonagall a shoulder to cry on. Told from McGonagal's POV, rated for some cursing. Please read and review.


DISCLAIMER: As much as I wish it were not so, J.K. Rowling owns pretty much everything you're about to read. I made no money from this.  
  
A/N: If you haven't read Order of the Phoenix, I'd suggest stopping now, going to your local library, and READING IT.  
  
**********  
  
I look at her, and I see Remus, a frightened child unused to the compassion I was all to glad to lavish upon him, a talented adolescent who had actually cried when she told him that she had found a Defense Master willing to take a werewolf as his apprentice, a man who went for days without food so that he could buy Wolfsbane on the black market. I see Sirius, once my golden boy, James Potter's chosen one, coddling Harry, lavishing the parental affection so long absent in the boy's life on him, during stolen moments in back alleys and shacks. She and her precious Ministry did that to them. On her best days, she embodies all that is wrong with the Ministry and, indeed, the Minister himself. More often, Dolores Umbridge behaves with reckless disregard for the tenuous threads of unity Albus worked so hard to weave.  
  
Because of her, we're dangerously close to losing Draco Malfoy again. With Severus's subtle coaxing, we had him so close to asking the first question. And that woman has pushed him back into his father's insidious embrace. What the hell is the Inquisitorial Squad?! What is wrong with that woman? Anyone with half a brain between their ears would let him spend his evenings with Severus, let the only person to ever defect from Voldemort's ranks, work his magic. But no. She confided in me that she feared Severus's influence on the boy, that she only trusts herself to temper Lucius's influence.  
  
And Harry. That dear boy has had so little upon which he could depend, so few dreams he could feed. Damn her for putting doubts into his mind. Damn her for belittling Remus Lupin in front of him! Damn her, damn her, damn her to the fieriest bowels of the deepest circle of Hell.  
  
"Minerva!" A quiet voice calls from the other side of my door.  
  
It is, quite possibly, the only voice I want to hear at this moment. If someone had told me, twenty odd years ago, that I would be eager to hear Severus Snape calling to me, that I would hurry to admit him into my private chambers, I would probably have sent them to the hospital wing immediately.  
  
He smiles weakly at me as I usher him in, collapses into the overstuffed chair he usually occupies when he's visiting me, and murmurs, "My children have taken to building a shrine to Fred and George Weasley in the common room."  
  
Unbidden, a smile tugs at the corners of my lips. The image of the twins soaring out of the castle on their broomsticks, hurling insults at that disgusting rhinoceros of a woman will forever live in my memory as a testament to the bravery of Gryffindor house.  
  
"Yes, I thought that would amuse you," he says.  
  
Trying to sound polite despite my growling temper, I ask, "Would you like some tea, Severus?"  
  
"Thank you." I flick my wand, unwilling to move from the comfortable sofa, my tea set appears on the table between us. As my fingers perform the familiar dance of preparing our tea, he says, "You look ready to explode, Minerva, and it is hardly a comforting sight."  
  
And damn him, the perceptive child. Damn him for noticing the rift in my usual calm demeanor, and damn him for caring.  
  
"That woman," I say, knowing he will need no clarification, "is driving me utterly mad."  
  
"If it is any consolation, you are not alone."  
  
"With Albus gone, she perceives me as the biggest threat to her, and she goes out of her way to let me know who Headmistress of Hogwarts truly is. It galls me, Severus. and I am even more annoyed because I know I should not allow such petty matters to affect me so deeply."  
  
He quips, "Caesar's wife must be above reproach."  
  
Though annoyed, I refuse to be sidetracked by the blatant jibe. He should be intelligent enough to avoid prodding those on the verge of emotional collapse. but now he will pay the consequences for his digression. "That is not exactly how I would choose to phrase it, but yes. I snapped at her this afternoon, in front of a student, no less. She was demeaning a colleague's teaching ability, second-guessing me, and. I snapped at her. The moment the student was out of earshot, the, er, spirited conversation deteriorated into a shouting match, during which she called me the lapdog of a megalomaniac and threatening to remove me from the classroom and teach Transfiguration herself. She claims that I am a bad influence on the children, that I am teaching them to distrust the Ministry."  
  
I'm trembling. I can't believe it. I'm actually, physically trembling, and in front of a former student. someone who, even now, looks up to me. Or, rather, is looking at me, watching me with a deeply troubled look in his eyes. Very few people get to see that look, the semblance of a gentle, concerned young man. He is desperately possessive of the few people he loves, and I know that I have earned that distinction. Especially when, unobtrusively, he crosses the room and sits beside me.  
  
He takes my left hand in both of his. They are impressively strong; he has lived on their deftness for years, so I am more surprised by the tenderness with which he presses my skin. "That. that small fraction of a person is not worthy to be in the same room as you."  
  
Unbidden, a reproach creeps from my lips. "You mustn't say."  
  
"I know the Headmaster's orders regarding that awful woman, and I will obey him," Severus says, and his voice is fervent, not placating. So I believe him. "And while, on the surface, I will obey her directives, I- and everyone else on staff- recognize you as Headmistress in Albus's absence."  
  
"Oh, Severus. My child." Damn, damn, damn! A tear slides from the corner of my eye. I can feel it eking obtrusively down my cheek, a beacon to the weakness I've been nursing since last June.  
  
"It's hard," he says with such gravity and wisdom that I cannot help but pay him heed. "The right thing is supposed to be hard."  
  
"That sounds like something Albus would say."  
  
"He did say it."  
  
"I'm." Another tear, and another, and another, a frantic procession that I cannot seem to stop with all the blinking and praying in the world. And does he laugh at me? Does he throw me that characteristic, disgusted look? No. He nods, encouraging me to continue. And, as though I've no control over my own blasted tongue, I do so! "I'm so incredibly lost! He's been grooming me to take over Hogwarts for nearly half a century, and now he's gone, and I am taking orders from one of Fudge's lackeys, and this is not how things were supposed to happen!"  
  
I can't do this. I'm supposed to be the strong one, Albus needs me to be the strong one! Oh, Merlin, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't-  
  
A quiet voice at my side pulls me into reality, such as it is, and coaxes, "Let it all out, Minerva. It's just you and me here now; say what you feel."  
  
And I explode.  
  
"I hate Dolores Umbridge! I hate her, I hate what she's done, and I hate Fudge for giving her carte blanche and for being such a blind, narcissistic bastard!"  
  
He blinks, obviously taken aback. I can hardly blame him. I don't think I've ever used such offensive language, not aloud, not in the presence of others. It's vulgar to do so, but at this point, I can't keep it in any longer. I simply cannot do it.  
  
"They're allowing the world to go to hell rather than to admit that they were wrong. Their foolish pride costs more and more innocent lives every day, and I can't stop it. Nothing I can do will stop it."  
  
"Don't be ridiculous," he says scathingly. For a moment, I want to lash out at him, but he presses on before I have the opportunity. "You serve Albus Dumbledore, for Merlin's sake; there is no better way to stop it!"  
  
"Albus Dumbledore is not here!"  
  
"But he is alive, Minerva, and as long as he lives and those who are powerful remain loyal to him, the Dark Lord will know fear as surely as you do!"  
  
My second shouting match in as many hours, and now, I'm screaming at someone who has done nothing to deserve my anger. Sweet Merlin, this is not right. Sternly, I order my breaths to come slower, my blood to stop screaming. For the first time since Albus left the school, this happens almost easily, and I sigh a little. Leave it to a Slytherin to trick months' worth of bottled emotions out.  
  
But I'm not angry. If anything I feel grateful to him for sticking his head in the lion's mouth, so to speak.  
  
"Are you all right?"  
  
"No," I reply as calmly as I can to the question. "I feel much better, though, thank you. I imagine this was your plan all along?"  
  
"Naturally," Severus says in his silky voice. "The last thing anyone needs right now is for you to be sent to Azkaban for attacking a Ministry official."  
  
It takes painfully little imagination for me to see just how close it came to that. this afternoon, after Harry's career advice session, I very nearly attacked Umbridge.  
  
He seems to sense the rising mortification, for Severus immediately turns it into a joke. "Could you imagine the scandal it would cause when Umbridge is forced to appoint me Deputy Headmaster? The Board of Governors would positively panic."  
  
"I can think of one governor who would be quite pleased with the change," I say coyly.  
  
His smile widens. "Yes, I imagine you are right. Speaking of whom." His eyes flick to the clock on my wall, and he sighs. "I promised Draco a game of chess this evening, and if you truly are feeling better, I had best keep that appointment."  
  
"By all means, Severus."  
  
"Would you like me to bring something to help you sleep tonight?"  
  
"No, thank you, dear, you know how I feel about sleeping draughts."  
  
"Something to calm you, then?"  
  
"I'm perfectly calm," I say as firmly as I can manage, considering my voice has not stopped shaking.  
  
He rises, and I follow him to the door, grateful for his quiet, private ways. He does what needs to be done and move along quickly. As he is about to leave, he scrutinizes me quite blatantly and announces, "I'm going to bring you a calming potion."  
  
"Severus."  
  
"Don't argue with me, Minerva, or I'll tell Poppy that I'm concerned for your health. You won't see anything outside the infirmary for a week."  
  
If he were still a student, he would be in detention until the last day of his seventh year for blackmailing a teacher. Oh, but he's not my student. He's a fully qualified Potions Master, a man who lives to observe minute details, which means, to my dismay, he is probably quite able to see the signs of exhaustion scrawled across my face.  
  
"Very well, my child."  
  
He nods succinctly. "Thank you."  
  
And he disappears down the hall, long black cloak billowing sinisterly behind him. I close the door and fall back onto the sofa. Somehow, he always manages to make me feel better.  
  
Merlin, give me the strength to do the same for him. 


End file.
